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Wednesday, 26 December 2012

And boy, did Cubbie go bang!!! It was such a lovely day in the north east of Scotland, that after the animals were fed, I decided to open up the shed and have a Christmas word with Cubbie. I wished the little bike a merry (late) Chrimbo, but the poor neglected Tiger Cub just looked at me, all dejected. So I stuck the battery on charge and went to find the key. An hour later (no, that wasn't how long it took to find the key, honest) I wheeled Cubbie out through the knee deep mud and onto the drive. Battery back on, fuel on, ignition on, big tickle, big kick; nothing. Ah, ok, better clean the old fuel out of the carby and try again. Wasted time looking for the screw driver I thought I needed and then cursed several times as I dropped screwdriver bits and messed about with pliers (I know, I know, not good to undo screws with pliers). Ended up taking the whole carb off rather than just the float bowl but that was only after covering myself in petrol. Good job I don't smoke. So with the carb back on and the plug cleaned up and a spark checked for, it was take two. A couple of kicks later the ear splitting crackle of an neglected and sulking Cub shattered the December silence. Mrs BC came round the corner with a wheel barrow full of muck, which had Cubbie not fired up.....

It ran for a few minutes then conked out. Then wouldn't start. Plug out. Soaking. New plug. Fired up again. Ran better. Into gear with an almighty clunk, up the drive. Attempt to open gate one handed whilst keeping Cubbie blipping.........B A N G ! ! ! !

Oh.

Oh well. At least I clocked up a few yards on two wheels before 2012 comes to an end (good job it wasn't last Friday). Maybe I'll charge the battery again and go for a New Years Day ride.

Sunday, 23 December 2012

As the title says, merry Christmas to all, and thanks for popping by to have a look at the blog now and again. Yet more apologies for the lack of stuff on here this year, but starting a mag and not getting time to ride bikes hasn't left me with much to blog about. Well I could have blogged about the mag, but that has its own page at www.thecubmag.com and then there's that Facebook thing too, with a page for Gee-Bee Chick and The Cub Mag. I think something might have to go next year. Facebook only took hold 'cos I could post from my Blackberry, but now I've 'upgraded' to such an awesome new phone, I can no longer get on FB. In theory, I can blog from it but have never been able to get that to work either. Maybe I can sort it over the hols. The only other things left to blog about are sheep, and I'm not sure you really want a sheep blog. Oh, and sheds, I suppose you might be interested in bike sheds - but there's a sheep shed too. I tell you what I did do that is bike related; nipped down to the Clyde Valley VMCC Christmas meeting and had a great time - wonderful entertainment from member Bob and his wife Kate, who between them, sing and play various instruments. The traditional Xmas meal for these guys is pie and peas (or baked beans), which makes a change from all those turkey dinners at this time of year. The highlight of the evening has to be the clown and his clown son who made a Cubbie from balloons. If you don't believe me.....

Soooooo, from all of us here at Cubbie Towers, hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and a dry new year. Remember, if you head on your Cub or Terrier over the hols, take a picture or three and send them in to The Cub Mag ;-)

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Wow!!! At last, I've met Lois on the Loose - aka Lois Pryce if you want to find her on Facebook. A couple or more years ago, I tried to arrange a club talk by Lois for the Grampian Classic MCC, but for reasons I can't even remember, it never came to fruition. Then, at the recent AGM, the Club asked me to arrange some 'interesting' speakers for the winter. Well, what could I do? I emailed Lois and set it all up. And boy, a more interesting speaker you'd be hard pushed to find. Full of enthusiasm and energy, you can tell Lois does what she does; because she loves it. What do you mean you don't know what she does? She rides bikes all over the world. In 2003 she rode her little 225cc Yamaha Serrow the entire length of the Americas, from Alaska to Argentina (stick it in Google Maps), and that was the subject of her talk last night. I mean, can you actually imagine crating your bike up, shipping it to the other side of the world, quitting your job, getting the visas, buying a one way ticket and setting off to meet your two wheeled companion, which will be your home, your friend, your family or maybe even your foe, for the next twenty thousand miles? Just sit and digest that for a minute. 20,000 two wheeled miles.

Anyway, here are a few pics of some of the slides in the talk, and I'll be working on the sneaky video that I took, and hopefully that'll be on Gorgeous Biker Chicks Youtube Channel very soon.....

Apologies if they're not in the right order but I all I did was upload them to the blog in the order I took em - are they right for going from Alaska to Argentina?

Lois brings her talk to an end...

...There were more than 5 in the audience, in fact, it was one of the best turn outs we've seen for a while.

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Here's a bit of interesting / good news. A snippet from a VMCC Section newsletter I get "As you may be aware from today (18th Nov 2012) it is no longer necessary to have an MOT for a pre 1960 vehicle, so *A Member* taxed his Francis Barnett online (no MOT for 7 years) and it went through no problem".

Sunday, 18 November 2012

Yep, finished half an hour ago. That's 22:30. It looks good in the dark, hope it still looks good in the morning! Pics to follow.....

.....Ok, so the weekend went like this.....

Saturday morning - late start though due to other commitments, and I set MFM to work levelling up the sleepers for the base. Had to make do with some scrap bits but no one will know once there's a whopping great shed on top of them.

My job was to drown them in a mix of Creosote and Cubbie engine oil - recycling is most satisfying sometimes!

Then the floor panels, which had been cut into 4 pieces to enable transportation on a small trailer, were put back together....

...and the levels checked in both directions....

....good enough, huh?

With so many joins in the floor, a layer of thin ply went down next to try and hold things together a bit more securely.

Oooooh, excitement, and then the roof when on....

I'm joking of course.

But it wasn't long....

I said it wasn't long.....

No, really, it wasn't long before we started on the roof. It was in fact, only the next day. The cross members had to be notched at each end so that they would site on the trusses and not fall on my head three times. I measured, MFM cut. Not my fault if its wrong then.

All was going well, the sun was shining and we were cracking on....

Then, it being winter and all, it started to get dark...

Quite rapidly.

A layer of chip board was next for the roof, as we were using corrugated bituminous sheets which are quite flimsy, and given the amount of snow we have around these parts, anything we can do to strengthen the roof has to be a good thing.

But it did mean we were out there in the freezing cold until after dark, with MFM going up on the roof to start nailing the chip board on. The head torch was great until the batteries started to feel the strain....

...so we set up the work light....

But when it came to cutting the wriggly sheets to length, we cheated and went into the steading where there are lights, and buckets, and straw and wheelbarrows, and feed bins...and not much room really. Measured in the dark, I just hope they look ok in the daylight.

The jigsaw gave a very neat and accurate cut.

The shiny bits on the wall, that's frost......brrrrrrrrrrrr

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, its the old inspection light from the shed, fixed to the end of what used to be a part of a football goal post, and when I wasn't taking pictures, I was wandering round holding the light in what I hoped was the right place so MFM could see to hammer black nails into black wriggly sheets on the roof in sub zero temperatures.

But come half past ten (22:30hrs I mean) this is where we called it a day.

And I'm pleased to report that this morning (Monday) the shed is still there and looks pretty good. The only small hitch was that we were 3 ridge pieces short, so used some wriggly offcuts as a temporary measure to keep the building weather proof, but this morning the offcuts were exhibiting some severe flappage around the edges as the light Scottish breeze blew gently across the fields. So I got the ladders out and slung 3 big heavy duty ratchet straps over the roof, and with a scrap bit of scaffolding board up there, its holding things firm, for now. There are gales forecast this week....yikes....

And next weekend we pick up the custom made lambing shed for Mrs BC, then I suppose we'll have to go through it all again!